Time 4 Launch!

Following on from the previous posting, here is Tri-ang Railways 4-Rocket Launcher which, like the Searchlight Wagon, was produced between 1962 and 1965.

It was also sold individually as well as part of "The Defender Train Set" and, again, is rare to find in a boxed, working condition as per the one shown here.

The Catalogue Nº was R.343 and its Running Nº was, as it was with the Searchlight Wagon, TR 7191.

Light Show

The Tri-ang Railways Anti-aircraft Searchlight Wagon, Catalogue Nº R.341, was available between 1962 and 1965 and was part of Tri-ang's set of NATO / Battlespace rolling stock.

It is quite rare to find a boxed example of this wagon and even rarer to find one with the lamp still in full working order, as in the photo above.

The lamp picked up its current from the track and was available both individually and, also, as part of "The Defender Train Set".

This train set consisted of a Class 08 diesel shunter, the searchlight wagon, 4-rocket launcher wagon and exploding car and was produced in 1964 only.

Snow Fun!

More work took place on the Diesel Depot at the weekend although, because the inclement weather meant that some of us decided not too venture out, I found myself working alone in the Shed this week - it was nice and quiet though!

The first job was to solder wires from the Bus to the re-aligned track that now passes through the Washer Plant. I then pinned this length of track down to the board and painted the sleepers dark brown.

This done, I then stuck the Depot Crane into position and laid some more scatter.

The final job of the afternoon, before venturing out into the grey and snowy winter's evening, was to finish tacking the plywood wall that now surrounds the depot prior to covering it with Metcalfe Brick Wall sheets in order to make it look like a wall and match, more or less, the wall of the Fuel Storage Tanks.

Snow is very pretty and can be fun too - if you don't have to drive in it!

Still, spring surely cannot be too far away now and, in the more immediate future, I am hoping that the wintry weather will not prevent things from getting back to normal down the shed this weekend.

A Moving Story

"The sole surviving Class 17 Clayton diesel-electric Bo-Bo, the former D8568,
left the Ribblesdale Cement Co. Ltd., Clitheroe, on Wednesday, February 9
for its new home on the North Yorkshire Railway. The main picture shows D8568
being loaded up for the two-day journey, and the inset shows it en route
on the M62 near Junction 17.

Here is another photograph or, more correctly, two photographs, scanned from the pages of Rail Enthusiast. These photos show the only surviving member of the Class 17 fleet of 117 Type 1 locomotives leaving the Ribblesdale Cement Co Ltd for its new home at the North Yorkshire Railway.

The photograph, and its inset, were featured in the May 1983 edition of the magazine and both pictures were taken by M J Symons.

The caption that accompanied the photos is also included above.

The Class 17s were built by Clayton Locomotives of Tutbury and D8568 was constructed in the autumn of 1963.

The Claytons were fitted with two 450 HP Paxman engines and were the only main line diesel loco to have flat engines, where the pistons went from side to side rather than the more usual up and down.

D8568 was delivered to Haymarket near Edinburgh in January 1964 before moving to Polmadie near Glasgow in September 1968. It remained working here until it was withdrawn in October 1971 having, as a result, spent all of its working life based in Scotland.

The Class 17 locos were designated by BR as the standard Type 1 locomotive and were supposed to have replaced the English Electric Class 20s. This was because their centrally positioned cab was meant to give drivers much better visibility although, because of the long 'noses', this was not necessarily the case.

As it turned out, of course, the Class 17's proved to be extremely unreliable, which meant that withdrawals began as early as 1968 at a time when some of the members had only been in service for four years. This made them one of the least successful and shortest lived of BRs main line locomotives.

All of the class, with the exception of D8568, were scrapped, although the final two were not actually cut up until 1978.

After its withdrawal in 1971, D8568 went to Hemelite in Hemel Hempstead and, then, to Ribblesdale Cement before being saved for preservation.

It is now in operation at the Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway having completed a successful test run in March 2011 following a major overhaul.

Washer Room

 

Work continued on the Diesel Depot at the weekend and, as you can see, we have had a bit of a change-around. This was necessary after we discovered that the left-hand buffer on the larger locos just managed to catch the side of the Washer Plant as they entered it. 

This was due to the slight curve in the track between the bridge and the Washer Plant  and was something that we had not properly tested previously - DUH!

So, with another lesson duly learned, we found that we could simply swap the Washer with the Depot Crane and, also, make the track that passes through the Washer a longer straight section. This would then eliminate any curves and give even the largest of our locos enough room to pass through the washer without any interference.

The track just beyond the washer has not been tacked down as yet because we have to connect it to the bus wires running beneath the layout. 

However, because there are obstacles underneath the baseboard, we cannot drop wires down beside the track and will have to run one of them beneath this section of track. before it is tacked into place. This should be done this coming weekend and, then, we can continue landscaping the depot before we can add figures etc.

One other change that we made this weekend was to add a two-aspect coloured light signal to control locomotives leaving the Depot. This signal is the one that was replaced at Sueston and is perfectly placed here for telling my drivers when it is safe to rejoin the main line. 

Of course, whether the more zealous amongst them will actually obey the signal is another matter.

Feather Wait

Class 50, 50007 'Sir Edward Elgar' gets the green light as she waits at Sueston station with an express for the North.

You will see that we have changed the signal here for a two-aspect with feather for those trains departing Platform 3 and crossing over to the down line. The ordinary two-aspect signal that was here has now been moved to control trains departing from the Diesel Depot, of which more next time.

Like the other signals that we have used this one is by Traintronics and was fairly straight-forward to wire up. We had to use two SPDT switches though, one for switching between Red and Green and the other for turning the Feather lights on and off.

Having done this I think that we now need to use a similar signal to control Platform 4 where trains can either cross to the main line or carry straight on into the tunnel and on to Saggy Bottom Halt.

Control Tower

Well, the rather poor photograph at the top shows the current set-up of our Bachmann E-Z Command Dynamis Wireless Digital DCC Control System. 

Wow, now there's a mouthful!

To make it a bit easier to understand what is shown here I have labelled the various components piled high on the shelf as well as lined up along the wall.

I reckon that we now have as much as we need to operate the layout effectively, as well as being able to run several locomotives at the same time without any loss of power.

What we did not know before we bought the Power Booster is that it has an internal cooling fan which is rather noisy; so we plan to hide it away in a cupboard underneath the layout. This will also mean that there will be a lot less cables dangling from the tiny shelf and leave just the Base Station and Pro Box sitting above the layout.

The Booster comes with a large transformer (not shown in this photo) and is connected to the Pro Box via a single cable that is supplied with the Booster.

The wires to the track are connected directly to the Power Booster rather than the Pro Box and so, with the Booster hidden beneath the layout, and both it and the Pro Box plugged in to the mains beneath the layout as well, it should be both much quieter and look a lot neater.

The Pro Box, as with the Base Station, allows for one Wireless Receiver to be plugged directly into it. However, unlike the Base Station, the Pro Box also allows up to four more Receivers to be plugged into it. These are purchased individually and each comes with a long length of cable so that it can be positioned some distance from the Pro Box. The higher the Receivers are mounted the better it is since this will improve reception between it and the Wireless Handset, shown in the lower picture, and this, in turn, allows for more efficient running. 

To make things a little bit neater we have tied together the four cables running between the Pro Box and the four Receivers to form one loom. We have also placed all four Receivers fairly close to each other but they could be positioned separately and, more or less, wherever you want them, up to the limit of the cable of course.

Please note that up to four Wireless Handsets can be used in conjunction with the Pro Box whereas, with the Base Station, only one Handset can be used. I think that a fifth Handset could also be used but this needs to be connected directly to the Base Station / Pro Box so is not so flexible. 

Obviously the more Handsets that you have the more operators you can have and, subsequently, more trains that can be running on the layout!